Monday, 13 April 2009

Today sees me deliver my fifth flapjack review - the Marks & Spencer Chunky Chocolate Flapjack. Those of you may recall I am rather partial to my flapjacks, with my highest rating so far going to the Cadbury Dairy Milk option. This Marks & Spencer offering was going to have to go some way to beat it, but I guess this wasn't going to be just any flapjack ... this was a Marks & Spencer flapjack *groan*.

If this was a competition on size this M&S flapjack would have run away with it ... it weighed in at a beastly 80.0g and certainly provided one hell of a snack. I wasn't all that taken in by the packaging. The transparent nature of the wrapper displayed the product well, though I thought it was a little uninspiring. Despite this I actually quite liked the design work on the flapjack itself, it is pretty hard to tart up a flapjack but the simple drizzling effect of the chocolate placed on top was a nice touch. To be honest I was expecting more from the smell of the product, it just seemed a little lacking and only offered a quite mundane cereal type smell. It would certainly have been nice to have been able to detect a stronger cocoa presence.

Despite the lack of evidence of chocolate in the smell, it was certainly forthcoming in the taste. The main constituents of the taste obviously belonged to the butter, honey and oat elements, but the real shinning star was definitely the 'dark chocolate'. Though described as dark on the wrapper, the flavours brought were friendly, milky cocoa bursts. Where the chocolate was present it noticeably moistened the flapjack, giving it a fantastic gooey texture. This turned out to be a very welcome addition, as you can imagine 80.0g of hefty flapjack did become quite dry towards the finishing of the product. Despite the inevitable dryness, the actual flapjack base was well delivered, and had a very pleasant buttery, oat taste that was well fused by the sweet golden syrup. As aforementioned the full 80.0g provided an extremely satisfying snack, to be honest it felt more like a meal!

Overall this flapjack didn't quite hit the heights of the Cadbury Dairy Milk option, though this was always going to be a tall order. The fact is, it still delivered a delicious experience, but just couldn't quite compete on the quality of the chocolate in the Dairy Milk flapjack. If it came to it, and I was propositioned with either one of these or the Cadbury, if I was particularly hungry I would possibly consider choosing this flapjack, for the sheer reason that is huge and very fulfilling. As far as being an all round product though, I am afraid the Cadbury Dairy Milk flapjack triumphs.